Johnson’s princely hero looks uncomfortable with a tool of manual labor as he explores a wider experience of life. “Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.” Dr. Samuel Johnson undoubtedly achieved greatest renown, and earned his place in history, with his seminal Dictionary of the English Language. But less well known is his first and only novel, Rasselas, published four years later, which tells the story of its eponymous hero, the Prince of Abissinia. Rasselas lives in the happy valley in which he and the other royal sons and daughters are kept secluded from the vagaries of human life, with their every want and desire provided for, until they succeed to the throne. By the age of twenty-six, however, Rasselas is dissatisfied and restless with this life in which he wants for nothing. Guided by a learned man, Imlac, he escapes from the valley in the company of his sister, Nakayah, and sets out to explore the world and discover the source of true happiness. A parable in the literary tradition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Rasselas’s adventures and lengthy conversations provide a vehicle for Johnson’s moral reflections on an astonishingly broad range of topics. These include poetry, learning, solitude, reason and passion, youth and age, parents and children, marriage, power, grief, madness, and desire. Although Dr. Johnson’s abilities as a novelist are overshadowed by his strengths as a moralist in this book, Rasselas remains of interest today both as a testament to the predominant concerns of the Enlightenment, and for the humor and universality of Johnson’s reflections on these topics. SD